Nokia unveils Lumia 920 superphone, claims to have the best screen and camera in the world

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In New York, Microsoft and Nokia have announced the Lumia 920 smartphone, the Windows Phone 8 flagship device that will launch at the end of October. As expected, the Lumia 920 has a 4.5-inch display, 8MP camera, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 SoC, 32GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, and built-in wireless charging. What we didn’t expect, however, is that — according to Nokia and Microsoft, at least — the Lumia 920 has the most advanced camera and LCD display ever seen on a smartphone.

The camera

The camera sensor on the Lumia 920 clocks in at a fairly normal 8.7 million pixels, but unlike any other smartphone on the market the camera module is equipped with optical image stabilization. This is the same kind of technology that you will find in professional Canon and Nikon lenses, effectively counteracting the shaky movements of your hands. This should not be confused with the iPhone, which performs digital image stabilization. In the case of the Lumia 920, there are actually tiny motors and springs that keep the camera module stable.

In front of the 16:9 Lumia 920 sensor there is an f/2.0 Carl Zeiss lens — which, according to Nokia, is the biggest-aperture smartphone lens ever. Finally, the sensor itself is physically larger than those found on other smartphones — and if you’re a digital photographer, you will know that this is a very good thing.

These three features, plus some clever software, combine to create Nokia’s PureView technology. In short, PureView basically means that you can shoot smoother video (i.e. no more crazy shakes every time you laugh or walk), and you can take sharp photos in very low light without a flash. In photographer parlance, PureView gives you a few extra stops.

The results speak for themselves:

Sadly Nokia hasn’t released any high-resolution Lumia 920 sample photos — but we’ll add them to this post when they become available.

The screen

The Lumia 920 is outfitted with a 1280×768 (WXGA) PureMotion HD+ IPS LCD display. According to Nokia, this display is 25% brighter and has pixel response times that are 2.5 times faster than any other smartphone on the market (gray-to-gray in 9ms). We’re not entirely sure what secret sauce Nokia is using — why doesn’t Apple have access to these mega-fast LCD panels? — but we’ll reserve our judgment until we actually see the screen in person.

Like its predecessor, the Lumia 920’s display uses ClearBlack technology (some clever polarizing filter that makes the screen more readable in bright light) — and curiously, Nokia is also saying that the Lumia 920 has the most sensitive touchscreen of any smartphone. In an amusing demo, a Nokia engineer put on some ski gloves and used the Lumia 920 without any issues. Apparently this functionality is provided by a “dual-mode” touchscreen — but beyond that we don’t have any more details. Perhaps it’s capacitive when you have bare hands, and resistive when you’re wearing gloves? Either way, those of you living in colder climes may find this feature very attractive.

Lumia 820

At the same event, Nokia also announced the Lumia 820 — the 920’s mid-range brother. The 820 is very similar to the 920 (the same 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4, 1GB of RAM, ClearBlack, Super Sensitive touch), but it has a lower-res 800×480 4.3-inch screen and an 8-megapixel camera without PureView technology. In the 820’s favor, though, it has a replaceable battery and interchangeable backs (while the Lumia 920, like the 900, is one big slab of provocative polycarbonate).

At this point I think we need to remember that the Lumia 900 only launched five months ago — and while attractive, the phone was otherwise unexceptional. The Lumia 920, on the other hand, is clearly gunning for a seat at Apple and Samsung’s rather exclusive table — and with what appears to be the best camera and screen on the market, Nokia might just be able to pull it off.

Two very important questions still remain unanswered, though. The sexiest hardware on the planet is nothing without comparable software — and while Windows Phone 8 sounds great, we still have no idea how it will fare once it actually hits the market and goes toe-to-toe with Android and iOS. Which leads us onto the second big question: When is the Lumia 920 actually coming to market? Nokia and Microsoft spent 60 minutes extolling the virtues of their new superphone — and yet they didn’t say a single word about pricing or availability.

For now, the Lumia 920 might be the best phone in the world on paper — but in about two weeks, Apple will actually have the best phone in the world: the iPhone 5. Tick-tock, Nokia, tick-tock.

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8.7 terapixels? Wowzers! Best camera, hands down! Or did you mean 8.7 million *pixels*? ;)

Also, why would anyone label a phone that hasn’t even been announced as “the best in the world”? For shame, Sebastian.

All that said, I would probably get a Lumia 920 for myself if I was just a wee bit richer. But alas, students have little time for working.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Yeah man, terapixels are where it’s at! (Thanks; fixed :)

Huh? Nokia says it’s the best in the world. And it has been announced! It just hasn’t been released…

(FWIW, there are units being used at the event in NYC. It’s almost 100% certain that the Lumia 920 will be released at the end of October, with W8 and WP8)

Abhijeet Mishra

This best phone in the world doesn’t even have a TV-out or HDMI output. That’s a major omission and probably there because MS didn’t add support for those in WP8. I seriously hope there are more features to be announced in WP8, there’s nothing special that I saw that would make it win over Android or iOS yet. :|

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

FWIW, they were streaming the phones’ screens to the projector using some type of output, so I’m hopeful it has a version of HDMI.

Abhijeet Mishra

Yes, I’m hopeful too, let’s see what the full specs include.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Yeah, have always wondered if those setups (Google uses them too) are possible with commercial handsets, or if they’re using some kind of developer prototype thing.

http://profiles.google.com/l.alcala.diaz Luis Andrés Alcalá Díaz

Devs devices i guest, maybe there is a special cable that can be hooked to the USB port of the device and with some tweaks to the OS (A special super-user mode??) they can stream the device screen…
From the spec sheet, not the devices doesn’t have any form of video output, Nokias fault (Hard) or MS fault (Soft) I don’t know, but most probably is that WP doesn’t support that feature yet (Lastest Symbian devices from Nokia have that feature)

Abhijeet Mishra

Which is what surprises me. What is MS playing at with not adding these things to WP8, and if they have, what is Nokia playing at with releasing devices that leave such things out?
My Nokia N79 from 2008 had a TV-out port, so it’s a shame devices are coming out in 2012 with no TV-out in the WP8 land.

andrewi

i very much doubt its done in software. It would be much easier to just splice the internal output cables (going to the display) and attach them to a simple USB cable. You could write a one off simple driver for the input, and do it for every single device you ever made, because the raw data coming from that connection, despite the resolution and Hz variation, would essentially be the same for every device.

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

I looked around and found Droid@Screen which could be used to mirror an Android screen by sending it to a PC over USB, which could then send to a projector. Site isn’t responding, but I assume that its existence means that’d be a way to do it on phones which don’t have hardware video output.

Adrian

Nokia phones have DLNA so just use your Xbox360 to stream to your TV

Abhijeet Mishra

Ah, so it’s assumed everyone has an Xbox 360/DLNA enabled TV now? :)

http://twitter.com/M0dern_Man Kristjan Kahur

Unless you are living in a hillbilly shack somewhere – yes.

Abhijeet Mishra

Then that’s a wrong and idiotic assumption, but oh well ;)

GatzLoc

They want to sell a microsoft ‘bundle’ I don’t agree with what they’re doing but it has promise. The 360 is the best-selling hd console, and you have everyone with a windows computer (maybe not so big a point) but tying everything together means that just because of the 360 thing, windows phone is a viable 3rd player. (xcrosses fingers for RIM).

Abhijeet Mishra

Yes, having a nice system where all devices are interlinked and can be used like that is very good, but it still shouldn’t be a requirement. An XBox 360 is the best selling console but there are still a LOT of people who don’t have a console (or buy a PS3), so my point stands, a hardware HDMI/TV-out port can’t be beaten.

GatzLoc

I agree entirely, I just think that because they release these phones relatively quickly, that because no other player has one atm they won’t do one either and claim they are ‘better’ because they have this Xbox functionality.

Classic Microsoft thinking, but the problem they don’t understand is that they don’t have the 80-90%+ marketshare they are used to here.

andrewi

You forget that the cost in software is very very small, whereas the cost in hardware is a lot bigger. Theres a reason why HDMI out supporting phones are the minority, and thats because its expensive and used by a very small amount of phone owners. If you have a PS3 or a non-DLNA TV you at the very least still have a PC/DVD player/streaming device to beam your movies over from.

Someone needs to elaborate on what functionality a phone offers your TV that you don’t already have by your TV.

andrewi

It’s a far better ploy than Apple are offering.

andrewi

Ah, so its assumed that everyone has a HDMI/Digital TV now?

DLNA is on as at least many devices as HDMI is remembering that there is still a large portion of the world that views in SD.

OceanGrownKush

It’s Nokia making the claim “the best in the world” not the author of the article, Einstein.

Xplorer4x4

Well Einstein, from what I see see Nokia only claimed to have the best camera and screen, but never actually said it was the *best phone.*

mori bund

To be even more precisely ^^:
Nokia & MS called it the best LCD-screen (Samsung and a few others use OLED-screens), but near the end of the article the author himself the author claimed “what appears to be the best … screen on the market”.

OceanGrownKush

It was in the original headline, slick.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

The headline hasn’t changed.

OceanGrownKush

The original headline had “best in the world” in quotes.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Nope, the headline hasn’t changed since publication.

I think we’ve used quotes in the headline maybe… twice… in the last 18 months — and this wasn’t one of them.

Nokia shares dropped 0.30 euros to close at 1.99 euros, a loss of 12.95 percent.

Microsoft and Nokia joined to boost their arsenal in the smartphone wars with a powerful new Windows-powered device aimed at battling Apple’s iPhone and rivals powered by Google’s Android system.

chojin999

Windows8 is already a failure. Nokia investors can already see that. And they are absolutely right. MetroUI/ModernUI is a shame, the worst childish unproductive UI ever created. People rejected it already with WindowsPhone7.x which didn’t get more than 2-3% of marketshare.

NicolaMantovani

scared much that less people will buy your smartphone of choice?

GatzLoc

It’s sad it didn’t for a person who wants simple, text, email, and facebook/insert here in one simple place the tiles icon is perfect. I can’t find any problems with it, of course it’s unproductive but that’s not what it was built for. You want productivity go grab a bold 9900. :P

andrewi

Wait, the Apple fanboy wants to talk about productivity. Lol.

http://www.facebook.com/bob.cook.3597 Bob Cook

What is more important than bashing Apple or Android phones is a vialbe third party player to give consumers more choices…and introduce more competition into the marketplace.

Karen

I have the Nokia 900, I’ve only used Windows phones to date and don’t have any complaints. It does everything I want it to do and Skydrive for syncing documents, spreadsheets etc. is perfect.
I’m not impressed with the camera in the Nokia, mine has always taking pretty pathetic looking photos. Had the Samsung Focus before this Lumia and the Samsung had noticeably better quality photos.But since the battery and charging capability of the Samsung totally malfunctioned… I guess it’s a trade off, camera or a phone that works.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Well, I think you can have both! The iPhone 4S has a fantastic camera, and seems to receive almost universally positive reviews.

It seems Nokia is trying to achieve the same thing with the Lumia 920 :)

http://twitter.com/javelsan Jakob S.

iPhone 4S has shit for camera! If you like to shoot still photos indoors, it amazes me how bad the results are. However, shoot a video under the same dim lights and you get amazing results. Why? Beats me. In my life photos rule and videos don’t.

chojin999

Maybe you should spend a few bucks to buy some proper camera apps instead of pretending everything for free included by Apple to use the camera. Developers do exist to provide apps to customers willing to spend a few bucks to get the functions they need.

andrewi

Why should I? I don’t buy new Mail apps, I expect the free one in the phone to be sufficient, especially seeing as I can’t uninstall it. I don’t buy new browsers, I might download a free one, but I shouldn’t have to pay to get my browser to view normal content. No other phone forces me to buy another camera app to get decent photos.

When you buy a camera do you pay for the camera then pay for the software to take photos with that camera after? No? Then shut up and stop being a fanboy. I just realised you’re exactly the same user who’s retarded post I just responded to on another article.

CLiDED

You sound like a cry baby. Did mommy forget to feed you this morning?

andrewi

Yeah she did actually, but your mom did do me a good roast last night so it’s not that bad. :P

Trash talk aside, I’m not crying at all, I don’t have an iPhone, I’m simply saying why I don’t. You probably do though, are you crying over it? Probably not, but you’re a hell of a lot more out of pocket than me. :)

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

I think that might actually be the first ‘ur mum’ comment we’ve had on ExtremeTech.

If only I had some kind of trophy to give out…

andrewi

@mrseb:disqus
He started it! :P

@CLiDED:disqus There is a difference between having to buy a camera
app to get good pictures and getting a free camera app to improve
already good pictures. That is my point, the mom joke is just a razor edged jest, you started the insults first. Troll tears are the best tears :)

CLiDED

You’re crying about using different camera apps.

Hence crybaby.

I would stoop to your low with momma jokes too, but you might cry at that as well.

Archean

I have been using Lumia 800 alongside SGS III, and it gives later run for its money in most cases. Infact it is rock solid stable, which SGS III is not. So I guess time to say good bye to SGS is almost here.

NicolaMantovani

sadly, the 920 will cost a fuckload of money, I’m waiting till the 820 drops to 300€ or something…

http://www.facebook.com/brady.wedding Brady Wedding

Forgotten about the Nokia 808 already?

http://twitter.com/jm_lion jmlion

“Apple will actually have the best phone in the world: the iPhone 5. Tick-tock, Nokia, tick-tock.”

Because I guess you already know ALL the specs and NEW features of iphone 5. lol

Hazim Abujbara

Are you blind? The Lumia 920 out classes the iphone 5 by a longshot. The only thing they are missing is a marketing strategy that works.

CLiDED

Are you blind? His comment was made before the iPhone 5 was launched, dummy.

Kuladeep Roy

Thanks Sebastein for shearing your views. Camera of Lumnia is truly good. Density of pixel is truly good. I have Nokia Asha, it has only 2 MP camera. But quality of image is very good.

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